Bitch Media - David Wojnarowiczhttp://bitchmagazine.org/taxonomy/term/4999/0
enDouchebag Decree: Boehner and Posse vs. Smithsonianhttp://bitchmagazine.org/post/douchebag-decree-boehner-and-posse-vs-smithsonian
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<p>I have a feeling that House Majority Leader-to-be John Boehner may prove himself the worthy recipient of many a Douchebag Decree in the months and years to come, but the distinctly layered douche-osity <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/11/us_representative_john_boehner.html">of</a> <a href="http://www.tbd.com/blogs/tbd-arts/2010/11/glbt-portrait-gallery-exhibition-attracts-conservative-anger-5266.html">this</a> <a href="http://www.npr.org/2010/12/01/131730255/smithsonian-under-fire-for-gay-portraiture-exhibit">story</a> made it hard to resist awarding him the honors this week. </p>
<p>Since October 30, the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery has been showing <a href="http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/hideseek/index.html">Hide/Seek</a>, an exhibition of LGBTQ portraiture. Until yesterday, one of the pieces in the exhibition was a video called "Fire in My Belly." The piece, meant to be an expression of the pain of AIDS and the fragility of the body, was created by David Wojnarowicz in response to his partner's suffering. Wojnarowicz himself died of AIDS in 1992. Here is the video, which depicts ants crawling on a crucifix, among other images. A warning: It is pretty graphic in its depictions of human suffering, and is NSFW.</p>
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The exhibition had been running smoothly since its opening, with only one complaint from a visitor. Then suddenly this week, the über-conservative Boehner, having most likely been alerted to the exhibition by the <a href="http://www.catholicleague.org/release.php?id=2035">Catholic League</a> and <a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/smithsonian-christmas-season-exhibit-fea">conservative site CNS News</a>, surfaced from his self-congratulatory election haze and decided that he was outraged! His outrage was focused on the Wojnarowicz video and its depiction of the crucifix, but CNS and <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/11/30/ant-covered-jesus-exhibition-sparks-call-congressional-probe/">Boehner's buddies</a> took issue with other parts of the exhibition as well.</p>
<p>Jack Kingston (R-Georgia) had this to say: "If they've got money to squander like this—of a crucifix being eaten by ants, of Ellen DeGeneres grabbing her breasts, men in chains, naked brothers kissing—then I think we should look at their budget." </p>
<p>As a side note, I'm wondering when Ellen DeGeneres stopped being America's Favorite Nonthreatening Daytime Lesbian and started <a href="/post/douchebag-decree-americans-for-truth-about-homosexuality">inciting such a fear of feel-ups</a>. But the important part of Kingston's statement, and what makes this whole debacle so very douche-y, is that mention of the budget. Basically, Boehner and his cronies hinted repeatedly that unless the Smithsonian took down the Jesus/ants video, thereby censoring itself to meet conservative standards, they were going to cut their federal funding. </p>
<p><img src="/sites/default/files/u27587/john-boehner-smirk.gif" alt="john-boehner-smirk.gif" width="263" height="215" align="left" hspace="10" />Boehner was typically righteous, saying, "American families have a right to expect better from recipients of taxpayer funds in a tough economy." <a href="http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2010/12/01/smithsonian_removes_gay_video/index.html">As others have reported</a>, this is a bullshit stance to take, seeing as the Hide/Seek exhibit is largely funded by individual donors and LGBTQ foundations. But Boehner doesn't care: "Smithsonian officials should either acknowledge the mistake and correct it, or be prepared to face tough scrutiny beginning in January when the new majority in the House moves to end the job-killing spending spree in Washington."</p>
<p>Now, I'd like to say that this a black-and-white, douche vs. non-douche story, but it seems that we have a bit of a douche sandwich on our hands. The Smithsonian, in response to being called out by Boehner and company, did not do the right thing and take yesterday's <a href="http://www.worldaidsday.org/">World AIDS Day</a> as an opportunity to stand up for the work of this LGBTQ artist who died of AIDS. Nope. Instead they did the douche thing by taking down the video and all but apologizing. "I regret that some reports about the exhibit have created an impression that the video is intentionally sacrilegious," said Martin Sullivan, the National Portrait Gallery's director. "In fact, the artist's intention was to depict the suffering of an AIDS victim. It was not the museum's intention to offend. We are removing the video today." The rest of the exhibit has stayed intact. </p>
<p>Obviously, I think this was the wrong move on the Smithsonian's part. But I'd love to hear other opinions! Was it acceptable for the NPG to take down the video, seeing as Boehner and the House do have the power to take away some of the museum's funding? Should the NPG be given a pass since they are, after all, the first major American museum to house an exhibition of LGBTQ portraits? Or is it Douchebag Decrees all around this week?</p>
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/douchebag-decree-boehner-and-posse-vs-smithsonian#commentsDavid WojnarowiczDouchebag DecreeJohn Boehnernational portrait gallerySmithsonianScienceThu, 02 Dec 2010 19:25:49 +0000Lindsay Baltus7087 at http://bitchmagazine.orgPage Turner-Rave On: Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore on Close to the Kniveshttp://bitchmagazine.org/post/rave-on-mattilda-bernstein-sycamore-on-close-to-the-knives
<p><i>"Rave On" is the Page Turner series that asks feminist writers, artists, musicians, activists, leaders, and scholars to talk about a book that completely rocked their world. Today we feature writer Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore on the memoir </i>Close to the Knives<i>, by David Wojnarowicz.</i></p>
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<p>In the early '90s, everyone was dying—that's how it felt, it felt like everyone was dying. We were the first generation of queers to grow up knowing that desire meant AIDS meant death, and so it made sense that when we got away from the other death—the one that meant marriage, house in the suburbs, a lifetime of brutality, both interior and exterior, and call this success or keep trying, keep trying for more brutality—it made sense that everyone was dying, because we had only known death.</p>
<p>Queer heroes were dykes, or they were dying—some of the dykes were dying too, but not as fast, unless it was suicide or a cancer they hadn't mentioned, cancer like childhood sometimes you can't say it. So when I found David Wojnarowicz, he was already dead; I didn't find him, I found his words.</p>
<p><i>Close to the Knives</i>: This was the first time I'd ever read something and thought: me. That rage I felt at the world, the world that left nothing but words. Words and these gestures of desire and longing and searching crazed madness. I was finally learning to say help, help me, I need help here, can you help? And there was <i>Close to the Knives</i>.</p>
<p>David Wojnarowicz wrote about a "disease in the American landscape," the literal disease of AIDS, but a crisis caused because the people in power decided who was expendable. <i>Close to the Knives</i> is so intent on exposing the layers of oppression between government and God and family and the "one tribe nation" of "walking Swastikas." One minute you're driving through the landscape of light and dark, shadow and memory and space, so much space, and all of a sudden: "I feel that I'm caught in the invisible arms of government in a country slowly dying beyond our grasp."</p>
<p>We were queer freaks and incest survivors and anarchists, feminists and whores and vegans and sluts and activists taking all these words into our ears our arms our mouths. We exchanged manifestos and zines, books, and fliers and gossip, organized direct actions and art projects, got in dramatic fights over politics, over the weather, over clothing, over who was sleeping with whom; we held each other, we painted each other's nails and broke down, honey we broke down. </p>
<p>I carried <i>Close to the Knives</i> around like a litmus test; when I met someone new, I'd hand it off—some would turn to me and say, "Oh, this is too much, I can't handle it." Others would look me in the eyes with recognition, and those were the ones. <i>Close to the Knives</i> helped me to embrace my rage like a "blood-filled egg," a shift in the texture of breathing, a way to further opportunities for connection rather than just the isolation we knew so well.</p>
<p><i>Close to the Knives</i> conjured this world of bathrooms and parks and alleys and rotting piers and other public opportunities for sexual splendor, and I, like David, was "gasping from a sense of loss and desire." Sure, "I was afraid the intensity of my fantasies would become strangely audible," but I knew that this public engagement with the sexual could infuse all moments of hope and horror, escape and claustrophobia, landscape and longing, death and remembrance.</p>
<p>I carried <i>Close to the Knives</i> around in my bag for years and sometimes when anything or everything was too much, I would reach for the familial texture of these words: I was learning and living and giving the potential of embracing outsider status in order to create safety, love, community, desire, home on my own terms. David Wojnarowicz reinforced this drive to build my own systems for understanding and challenging the world, my own sense of morality. He knew that "Hell is a place on earth. Heaven is a place in your head." Queerness became "a wedge that I might successfully drive between me and a world that was rapidly becoming more and more insane." A wedge I still hold on to.</p>
<p><i><a href="http://www.mattildabernsteinsycamore.com"> Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore</a> is the author, most recently, of </i>So Many Ways to Sleep Badly<i>, and the editor of </i>Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity<i> and an expanded second edition of </i>That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation<i>. She recently finished a new anthology, </i>Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?: Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform<i>. Mattilda is now making her public art project, Lostmissing, about the friend who will always be there, no matter what, and what happens when you lose that relationship, into some type of book. She's currently in the throes of writing a new memoir-type-thing called </i>The End of San Francisco<i>, and wouldn't mind an agent.</i>
</p><p><i>Image of David Wojnarowicz copyright Peter Hujar Archive.</i>
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http://bitchmagazine.org/post/rave-on-mattilda-bernstein-sycamore-on-close-to-the-knives#commentsbook reviewsbooksClose to the KnivesDavid WojnarowiczMattilda Bernstein SycamoreRave OnBooksThu, 17 Sep 2009 18:54:57 +0000Ellen Papazian2198 at http://bitchmagazine.org